


Forever And A Day

by SolarMorrigan



Series: Those 100 [26]
Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash, college days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one- okay, <i>almost</i> no one can resist the Venkman charm. Egon may need some convincing</p><p>Lucky Peter is persistent</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever And A Day

**Author's Note:**

> A take on the beginning of Egon and Peter's friendship, I suppose. I like the idea of Egon being a very elitist academic until someone shakes his beliefs up a bit

Egon looked up from his textbook in mild surprise when someone dropped heavily onto the bench seat opposite him. He honestly hadn’t been expecting his class-appointed partner to show up. “Venkman.” He greeted the ruffled young man before him.

Peter Venkman glared across the table, one hand supporting his head precariously. “It’s too early to be _alive_ , Spengler, never mind awake. Let’s get this show on the road, huh?”

Judging by the way Peter managed to squeak by on just the right side of ‘on time’ to their morning parapsychology class, Egon had deduced Venkman was not an early riser by nature. Part of Egon, hard pressed though he would be to admit it, had been hoping that choosing this early hour to meet for their collaborative project would discourage Peter from even showing up. It would be easier to complete the project by himself and turn it in after giving Venkman a brief rundown of what he had done than it would be to drag the academic dead weight of a jock in search of an easy ‘A’ through the rigors of a lab project. As much as Egon disliked the prospect of helping someone pass a class who didn’t deserve it, he was in no mood to suffer fools. If he had to let his partner coast through the class in order to be left in peace, then so be it.

Unfortunately, Venkman had not only shown up to their 8 AM meeting in the quad, but had brought a notebook, a pen, and a large cup of coffee. Apparently, he would be staying. Egon suppressed a sigh. “Certainly. I don’t suppose you managed to brainstorm any ideas for the project between now and our last class?” The blond asked.

It had been more of a rhetorical question; Egon had come prepared with a slew of experiments he considered suitable for their purposes and was, once again, surprised when Peter flipped through his notebook and opened it to a page full of scribbles. “Had a few ideas,” Peter mumbled around a yawn, “Wasn’t sure what you’d be into, so I just wrote it all down.” He dropped the notebook on top of Egon’s textbook for his classmate’s perusal.

Egon squinted down at the notebook. “I can read several languages, but I find myself unable to decipher most of this.” He said finally, eyeing the lines of illegible, pointed cursive writing.

Peter merely shrugged. “Hey, I’m a psych major. Doctors are supposed to have terrible handwriting, aren’t they?”

“That’s hardly an excuse.” Egon replied.

Sighing, Peter reached across the table and tapped a line in the middle of the paper with a hastily-drawn star beside it. “This is the one I’m most interested in, honestly.” He said, stifling another yawn and reaching for his coffee.

Egon scanned the block of text and was able to make out at least one word. “Precognition?”

“Foreknowledge of an event, particularly associated with the supernatural.” Peter quipped, as though reading from the textbook.

“I _know_ what precognition is.” Egon huffed- and judging by the way Peter was smirking around the lip of his coffee cup, he knew that Egon knew and was only trying to get a rise out of his classmate, “I simply don’t understand why you would want to conduct an experiment centered around it. Precognition has never been concretely proven and the testing methods are often… suspect.”

“Yeah, but it’d fulfill all the requirements of the project easy.” Peter returned, “Takes volunteers, multiple rounds of testing, compilation of data, all that fun stuff.”

“Well I’m not interested in an _easy_ grade, I’m interested in actually learning something in the process of conducting this experiment.” Egon informed the psych major.

Peter shrugged again. “Just because it seems easy doesn’t mean you won’t learn anything. You could be surprised- maybe we’ll get some interesting results.”

“Or, far more likely, we’ll end up with the same results every other experiment regarding precognition has yielded.” Egon replied. This was becoming irritating; he wasn’t here to argue the merits of experimentation on precognition. Instead, he pulled his own, neatly-written list of project ideas out from between the pages of his book. “As I can’t read any of your other… ideas, and a study on precognitive abilities would offer little in the way of new information, perhaps we can move on to my proposals?”

Peter’s eyes narrowed. Egon expected retaliation- after all, he didn’t know Venkman well, but most people on campus had either heard or heard _of_ his infamous temper. All he received, however, was an evenly spoken “Fine. Let’s hear it.”

Though he was somewhat taken aback, Egon wasted no time in elucidating his ideas. Peter was silent throughout, making no moves other than to take a sip of his coffee until Egon had finished. “Personally, I think the physical conditions of supposedly ‘haunted’ locations bears some consideration,” The blond concluded.

“Uh huh.” Peter finally nodded, then continued with a slight smirk, “One thing you’re forgetting, Spengler.”

Egon frowned minutely. “What?”

“Live subjects.”

“Pardon?”

Peter shook his head. “One of the requirements is to have _test subjects_. Live ones. We’re supposed to include human beings in our tests,” The younger man paused, “I think you kinda blew over the whole ‘psychology’ part of parapsychology.”

Egon looked back down at his papers, scanning them quickly. To his dismay, Peter was right; not a single one of his proposals included the human element their project guidelines called for. How could he have overlooked one of the crucial variables of the assignment? Peter took pity on him at that moment and spoke again. “Look, you’re a physics student, right?” He asked.

Egon nodded, still furiously poring over his notes. “Then why don’t you cover the hard science part of the project, and I’ll bring the people.” Egon looked up at Peter’s offer, “Should be easy enough to squeeze some kind of human reaction into your haunted places idea.”

“I… suppose.” Egon replied at length.

“Great. I’ll figure that out, you start working on how we’re gonna… do measurements or whatever.” Peter waved his hand vaguely and began gathering his items, “Right now, though, I gotta go.”

“We’ve been here less than half an hour.” Egon pointed out, irritated.

“Yeah, and it was a real productive 20 minutes, Spengs.” Peter grabbed his coffee cup and grinned over at his lab partner, “Catch you in class.”

With that, Peter was off across the quad, waving down a pretty brunette walking by as he did so. Egon scowled. This was not how he had imagined the morning going at all.

-/-/-

The next day, Peter strolled into class one minute before the hour, carrying two large paper coffee cups. He stopped at the door to toss one—apparently now empty—into the garbage can and then made a beeline for the seat beside Egon, plunking the coffee cup down in front of the blond. “What’s this?” Egon regarded the cup with some disdain.

“It’s called a gift. Here on Earth, we say “Thank you for the coffee, Peter,” and drink it.” Peter replied, shuffling through his notebook until he found a blank page.

“Though I… appreciate the gesture, I don’t drink coffee.” Egon said, pushing the cup gently back in Peter’s direction.

“Seriously?” Peter looked over at him, “What self-respecting college student doesn’t drink coffee?”

“It’s far too bitter for my tastes.” Egon replied, and was spared further inquiry by the arrival of the professor.

He was not, however, spared the suspicious glances Peter threw at him in between scribbling in his notebook and drinking the cup of coffee that had been meant for Egon.

Nonetheless, class passed uneventfully, and by the time Egon had packed away his belongings, Peter was already gone, notebook swept under one arm and second empty coffee cup in the garbage. With a shake of his head, Egon exited the classroom, unsurprised to see Peter a short ways down the hall, chatting up one of the women who had been sitting two rows ahead of them in class. More surprising, however, was Peter appearing at Egon’s side just a few moments after they’d passed each other outside the classroom. “Unsuccessful attempt with our classmate, I take it?” Egon asked, continuing towards the building exit.

“Pff, don’t be ridiculous, Spengler, no one can resist the Venkman charm.” Peter smirked, but gave Egon no time to reply, “Lauren’s a cool gal, we’re going to talk later. I actually wanted to talk to you right now.”

Egon turned to look at Peter, interest peaked. “Oh?”

“Yeah, about the project, I got a list of popular so-called haunted attractions in the general area, called a couple, and got a few bites.” Peter replied.

“Pardon?”

“I mean, none of the proprietors cared if we came to run tests, they said they get crap like that all the time. It was a little harder to find ones who’d agree to let us question the tour groups, but I found a few.”

Egon blinked. He hadn’t thought so far as to actually finding locations to do their testing- nor had it particularly occurred to him that some locations might not agree to host their project. “That’s… very good work, Venkman.” He said finally.

“Well you’re very welcome, Spengler.” Peter replied, exaggeratedly formal, before digging a piece of paper folded in four out from between the pages of his notebook, “I wrote the addresses and numbers down here.”

Together, they pushed through the doors of Weaver Hall and blinked in the sudden sunlight before Peter handed the list over to Egon. Egon unfolded the sheet of paper and found, to his dismay, the list was every bit as illegible as his last glimpse of Peter’s handwriting. “Venkman, this is indecipherable.” Egon brandished the list at his partner in irritation.

Peter shrugged. “Hey, you’re the language expert, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He grinned over at Egon then took the steps two at a time, heading in the direction of the dorms.

Egon scowled, watching Peter go before glaring down at the address list as though it would suddenly rearrange itself into something he could read. Infuriating.

-/-/-

It seemed Peter had made it his mission to startle Egon, coming up from behind him with a muttered ‘morning’ before plopping down into the seat across from him on the picnic table they were using as a workspace. Certainly, Peter looked half-asleep and hardly in any shape to pull jokes on anyone, but Egon was quickly learning not to put anything past the psychology student. He noticed as Peter placed his meager armful on the table that there were, once again, two coffee cups. “Unless you plan on drinking two coffees again…” Egon began.

“Hot chocolate,” Peter cut across the blond, placing one of the cups decisively beside Egon’s right hand, “Mr. Coffee-Is-Too-Bitter.”

Egon blinked, uncertain of what to say. Peter simply waved his hand with an airy grin. “You’re welcome. Now, d’you think those five places should be enough or do we need more?” After a brief pause, Peter sagged slightly against the table, “Please tell me that’ll be enough. I don’t even want to think of how much I’m gonna have to spend on bus fare to get to just those places.”

“Bus fare?” Egon wondered if it was the hot chocolate that had thrown him so far off center this morning.

“Yeah. Those places I called are all in different parts of the city, we’ll barely be able to hit one a day if we walk.”

Egon shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, we can’t take our equipment and papers on the bus. We’ll be driving.”

“You’re not talking taxis, are you? Because I am not forking over that kind of money, Spengler.” Peter raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

Egon mirrored the other man’s expression. “I _do_ have a car, you realize.” He intoned.

“Seriously?” Peter glanced around, as though he expected the vehicle to be parked somewhere in the quad.

“Yes. It’s nothing particularly fancy, mind, but it runs well.” Egon nodded, reaching forward to finally take a sip of his hot chocolate- it was surprisingly good.

“Great,” Peter clapped his hands together, standing from the table and grabbing his notebook, “To the Spenglermobile, then.”

Egon quickly swallowed his mouthful. “Pardon?”

“C’mon, let’s get going. I’ll have you know I cleared my entire Saturday for this.” Peter insisted, and for the life of him Egon couldn’t quite tell if the man was serious or not.

Finally, Egon cleared his throat and rose from the table as well. “Very well. I had hoped we could spend this morning going over our methods, of course, but…”

“Ah, forget it, Spengs, like you don’t already have the entire thing outlined and typed in triplicate.” Peter snorted, tossing a companionable arm over Egon’s shoulders.

Egon stiffened under the unfamiliar touch, but pushed himself back into a more relaxed state quickly enough. “To copy it in triplicate would indicate I thought you were going to read it in the first place.” He deadpanned.

For a brief moment, Peter looked almost offended, but began to chuckle instead. “Fair point,” He grinned, gesturing with his free arm, “So lead on, oh Boy Genius.”

A look of distaste crossed Egon’s face at the nickname, which only caused Peter’s grin to broaden before following the blond out of the quad and towards student parking, his arm still wrapped firmly around Egon’s shoulders.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peter stopped short when they had reached the parking lot and Egon led them towards a modest sedan at the far end of the lot, “ _This_ is your nothing fancy car?”

Egon kept walking, moving around to the driver’s side of the car, looking up only briefly to see the bewildered look on Peter’s face. “Yes.” Egon unlocked the door and leaned back to place his binder amongst the equipment he’d accumulated in the back seat since he’d begun to plan for this assignment. When he stood up again, Peter was still staring. “What?” Egon looked up and down the length of the car, “I realize it’s somewhat disorganized, but…”

Peter only shook his head. “Nothing fancy, he says,” Peter muttered to himself, moving to the passenger side door, “You realize this thing is nicer than, well- ah, never mind. Let’s get going.”

“The coffee his going to have to go. I would prefer to keep coffee stains out of the upholstery.” Egon insisted, already having tossed his empty cup of hot chocolate into a garbage can on the way.

Peter paused, scowling over the roof of the car at Egon. “You’re a cruel man, Spengler.”

Before Egon could formulate a proper reply, Peter brought the cup to his mouth and drained the entire thing in three long swallows. Casting a glance around for a garbage can to toss the empty paper cup into, Peter caught sight of the disbelieving look on Egon’s face and grinned. “Hey, it’s college. Had to get rid of that pesky gag reflex sometime.” With a wink, Peter tossed the cup towards an open bin a few yards away, let out a short whoop of triumph when the cup landed solidly within the receptacle, and ducked into the passenger’s seat before Egon could say a word.

Shaking his head, Egon slipped into the car himself, buckled his seatbelt, cleared his throat until Peter rolled his eyes and did the same, and began to pull out of the parking lot.

“So, did you figure my handwriting out, or do I get to give you directions?” Peter asked lazily, crossing his arms behind his head.

“To be frank, I wouldn’t trust you to give me directions across campus,” Egon replied.

“Ouch,” Peter didn’t sound particularly wounded.

“One of the addresses on your list was simply “somewhere on 14th or 28th street.” It was hardly encouraging.”

“Hey, I was doing most of it from memory, gimme a break.” Peter shrugged, “You figured it out, didn’t you?”

“Why on earth would you do it from memory? Surely your fraternity has access to at least a phone book.”

“Yeah, and I used the phone book to look up the numbers. Been to most of these places though, so I just kinda wrote down the addresses from memory.”

Egon almost looked over at Peter before remembering to train his eyes on the road. “You’ve been to these locations?”

Peter shrugged again, finally removing his hands from behind his head and placing them in his lap. “Yeah, sure. I’m _from_ New York, y’know. Went to some of ‘em as a kid, went to a few more when I got older. Even went to one with my dad once, but that’s a different story.”

“Why?” Egon couldn’t help the question as it spilled forth.

“Trust me, if we get into a story about my dad, it’s gonna take a lot longer than…”

“No, I mean, why did you go to New York’s famously haunted locations?” Egon clarified.

It was silent for a moment, save for the sound of pavement beneath tires, and even with his limited peripheral vision, Egon could tell Peter was looking at him. “You think I’m in this class ‘cause I want an easy grade, don’t you?” The question was far from offended- in fact, Peter sounded rather pleased with himself for having come to the conclusion.

“I never said…”

“Bah, you didn’t have to _say_ it, I’ve got your  number, Spengler,” Peter was out and out grinning, now, “You think I’m some dumb jock who thought parapsychology would be an easy pass and that I’m not paying attention to any of this!”

Egon frowned. Right or wrong, he hated when people to jumped to conclusions. The irony of this particular situation was not lost on him, however. He supposed some sort of apology was in order, even if Peter didn’t seem altogether bothered. But Egon’s apology never saw the light of day, as Peter continued talking as though no one had cast aspersions on his merit as a student. “Anyway, getting into haunted house tour groups is pretty cheap and good for a few laughs when someone starts going on about how they can _feel the evil_ ,” Peter smirked, “So today oughta be interesting.”

The blond held back a sigh. Of course. Amusement value. Forget interesting; today would prove to be very trying.

-/-/-

It was dark by the time they finished their rounds, and Egon was thoroughly fed up. _Trying_ was an understatement of the day’s outing. Though Peter had been an amiable companion, and willing enough to do the work Egon bade him to—mostly taking notes on the particulars of the locations Egon was taking readings from—his work was found to be seriously lacking in, well, seriousness. Egon had only gotten a glimpse at the poorly-penned notes, but he found them to be atrociously subjective. Peter had jotted down things like “ _upstairs bedroom; wife murdered husband number 2 or 3, I forget, with a hatchet; husband supposedly still appears in bedroom for some reason- if I were that ghost, I’d have gotten the hell out of dodge a long time ago_ ,” and had only gotten worse from there.

When it came time to interview the tour groups, Egon was internally cringing; this certainly wasn’t _his_ element, and if Peter wasn’t going to take this seriously, there was little hope for their project. However, in this one respect, Peter proved bizarrely capable. No one refused the charismatic student an interview (or, as Peter put it, a little chat), and they were all charmed into speaking about their experiences in the house. From chills to out-and-out ghost sightings, the boys heard it all.

Unfortunately, it seemed like Peter was doing nothing more than taking down the necessary personal information before carrying on a conversation. Egon did his best to remember what everyone had said, or jot down notes at the very least, but it seemed his ability to memorize facts and figures did not translate well into personal accounts. It wasn’t until they were back in the car that Peter returned to his notebook and began scribbling. “What are you doing?”

“Huh?” Peter had glanced up only momentarily, “Oh, I’m writing down the interviews.”

“Now?” Egon’s brows had gone up, “Why not when you were talking to them?”

“Meh, it unnerves people. They talk less.” Peter had shrugged, “I just write it down after.”

Egon might have been impressed by the show of memory had it not caused him so much grief. “And you didn’t feel the need to inform me of this earlier.”

“Well, I dunno, you looked like you were having so much fun trying to write ‘em down yourself, so…” Peter had trailed off, a flash of amusement in his eyes.

Egon could only huff and drive on. He had always enjoyed academic endeavors in the past, but he was glad to leave this one behind. At least for the day. “We’ll have to do at least one more round of testing in order to fulfill the requirements of the assignment, you realize.” Egon pointed out as he pulled up in front of the Tri Cuppa Brew fraternity house.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. We can work it out after class or something.” Peter waved his hand dismissively and let himself out of the car. “Catch ya later, Spengs!”

Unable to hold back the roll of his eyes, Egon drove back towards his apartment, ready to spend a relaxing evening compiling the data they’d acquired that day. All he needed were the measurements he’d taken and, of course, the location notes Peter had taken. Subjective though they were, Egon was certain he could glean the important facts from whatever the younger man had scribbled. He was even getting better at deciphering Peter’s handwriting. It wasn’t until the last stoplight before home that Egon realized, however, that Peter had the location notes in his notebook. Back at the frat house.

Egon groaned. Helpful input or not, it would have been so much easier if Venkman hadn’t shown up to that first meeting at all, he decided. So much easier.

-/-/-

After almost two solid weeks of absolute frustration and uncertainty, Egon was at wits’ end. The project was due next class period and _nothing_ was ready.

Certainly, Egon had all the scientific readings, but those were useless without Peter’s notes. His indecipherable and poorly-taken notes. Which were in that damn notebook he seemed to use for everything and held onto almost unfailingly. Egon had gone so far as to try and take the notebook one day when Peter wasn’t paying attention, but the mission had proved more difficult than it sounded and the notebook had remained with Egon’s flighty lab partner.

Peter held Egon’s academic fate carelessly in his hands and didn’t even seem to realize it. Instead, the younger man carried on as though there was no encroaching deadline, no looming grade, no _presentation_ to prepare for. No, he simply kept plying Egon with hot chocolate from the campus coffee shop, taking atrocious notes in his damned notebook, making jokes, and wandering off before Egon could so much as mention putting together the final product of their work.

And now here he was, waiting helplessly at the same picnic table they’d been meeting at since they’d been assigned to work together, hoping desperately that Peter didn’t get some wild hair and decide to blow their meeting off. Egon sat ramrod straight on the bench, meticulous notes set out in front of him, thoughts roiling in his head. He should have made more of an effort to gain Venkman’s cooperation. He should have taken better notes, himself, instead of relying on Venkman. He should have told Venkman not to worry about the project and taken care of it without his so-called partner. He should have gone to the professor and requested a different partner from the start. He should have- “Morning, Spengs.” Peter’s dull greeting, accompanied by the twin hollow thuds of two coffee cups landing on the surface of the table, pulled Egon out of his frenzied train of thought.

“ _There_ you are,” Egon growled, blatantly ignoring the fact Peter was no later than he usually was, “Do you have any idea how much we have to _do?_ ”

Peter blinked at the blond in surprise, halfway to his own seat. “Uh.”

“For god’s sake, this has been an absolute nightmare, do you know that?” Egon demanded, throwing his arms up, “You haven’t been taking a thing seriously, our project is due on Monday and _you_ have half the data- data that is, might I add, highly subjective and nigh indecipherable, we have yet to work out a presentation, or even put together something _coherent!_ ”

Despite his initial reaction, Peter seemed mostly unfazed by Egon’s outburst. “Spengs, relax.”

“How the hell am I supposed to relax when you’ve been driving me absolutely _insane?_ Do you know how abominable your study habits are? How infuriating it is to watch you make a mockery of this project? And will you _stop_ shortening my surname, it sounds ridiculous!” Egon insisted, not at all placated by Peter’s lackadaisical attitude.

“Okay, _Egon_. Calm down a sec and we’ll get things sorted out.” Peter finally took his seat and dropped his notebook on the table, along with a folder that had escaped Egon’s notice during his fit.

“What is _that?_ ”

“ _That_ ,” Peter, flipped the folder open to reveal a stack of papers covered in neatly-typed print, “Is my half of the project.”

Egon stared, unable to parse the professional-looking folder before him with Peter’s usual messy writing and lack of file-keeping. “Pardon?”

“The notes on all the haunted spots, plus all the witness accounts.” Peter elaborated, turning the entire folder around and pushing it towards Egon, “Let’s see how it stacks up to your standards.”

Brows furrowed, Egon looked down at the typed reports he was presented with.

_“Location 1, Area 1: Master Bedroom  
Reportedly the room of the house in which Alice Bennington murdered Charles Bennington, her second husband, with an axe. Charles Bennington is rumored to still appear in the room under certain circumstances…”_

“These aren’t your notes.” Egon looked back up at Peter.

Peter scoffed. “Sure they are. Spent all day yesterday typing them up, by the way. You’re welcome.”

Egon frowned. “These can’t be your notes. I’ve seen your notes, they’re a disaster. _These_ ,” Egon gestured to the neat accounts in front of him, “Well, they’re much more professional, to say the least.”

With a huff, Peter pulled his notebook over, flipped through pages until he found what he was looking for and pushed it at Egon as he had the folder. Laying open in front of him was the same page of notes Egon had seen that first day, but with vast modifications. Some words were circled or underlined, while others were crossed and scribbled out. Other notes dotted the margins, equally messy but obviously important as they were directed to certain parts of the page. After a few minutes’ comparison, it seemed the notes did, in fact, match what was typed on the page in front of him.

Egon flipped through the notebook and leafed through the typed pages, finding each to be the same: lined pages heavily scribbled upon and corresponding with the clean typing paper of the report. Egon could feel his face beginning to heat. “I…”

“I figured all we’d have to do today was put our work together and figure out how to present it.” Peter shrugged, tugging his notebook back to his side, but leaving the report in front of Egon.

Egon cleared his throat. “Yes, well. That seems like an acceptable course of, ah, action.” He nodded, still staring down at the papers in front of him.

“Glad you think so.” Egon could hear the grin in Peter’s words, but refused to react.

There was, after all, work to be done.

-/-/-

The final day of class was short and voluntary; the professor told them he only meant to hand out final marks and presentation grades, and answer any remaining questions they may have. If their curiosity was satisfied, then they were free sleep in.

As Egon suspected, the room was very nearly empty when he showed up. He supposed there were better ways to spend his time, and he could always see his grades in his end-of-semester report, but he felt compelled to return, anyway. If nothing else, he could see if all the grief he’d been caused over the presentation was worth it.

So ensconced in the professor’s notes as he was, Egon nearly jumped out of his seat when Peter’s voice sounded right by his ear. “So what’d we get?”

Egon shot a glare over at his now ex-lab partner, who was occupying his usual seat and offering up a cup of hot chocolate with an unrepentant grin. Egon sighed and flipped back to the front page. “See for yourself.”

Peter leaned over and scanned the page, a self-satisfied smile settling onto his features when he spotted the “A+” circled at the bottom of the paper. “Knew it.”

“Did you, now?” Egon raised an eyebrow.

“Well, sure.” Peter shrugged, “But just in case, I figured the hot chocolate could also be an apology.”

“For driving me up the wall for the past three weeks?”

“Nah, I think you need to have someone do that to you more often.” Peter shook his head, “An apology in case we didn’t get a good grade… maybe more of a consolation prize.”

“Hm.”

“Anyway,” Peter shrugged and stretched before standing from his seat, “Let’s get out of here. I don’t care how early it is, there are better places to be than class.”

“I feel as though our opinions differ on that subject.” Egon replied, though he was already packing his papers away- it wasn’t as though he had reason to stay, in any case.

“I feel as though our opinions differ on a lot of subjects, Spengs.” Peter said, holding the door open for the blond.

“You really have got to stop calling me that.” Egon shook his head.

“Or maybe you really have got to get used to it. I kinda like it as a nickname. I think it’ll stick.” Peter smirked.

Egon eyed the younger man warily. “Well it hardly matters. Parapsychology is over, we’ve no more business with each other.”

Peter’s smile dimmed. “Right. Class is over.” He paused, “I mean, I was just gonna ask if, y’know, you wanted to hang out sometime or something.”

Egon finally stopped walking altogether and stared at Peter. Peter stopped, too, looking around uncomfortably. “What?” Peter asked finally.

“I just… Well I should think you would want to be rid of me,” Egon replied bluntly, “I did, after all, insult your study habits…”

“And my intelligence…” Peter continued.

Egon cleared his throat. “Well, yes. And I won’t pretend I haven’t heard of your temper. It’s gotten you something of a reputation on campus, you know.”

“So I let off steam now and then,” Peter shrugged, then slung an arm over Egon’s shoulders to move them along the hallway once more, “Look, I wasn’t real thrilled about getting you as a lab partner, either, you know that?”

“You didn’t seem particularly enthused at first.” Egon agreed.

“I figured you were pretty much a huge drag. _But,_ ” Peter continued speaking over whatever protest Egon might have had, “After that first day, there was something about you I kinda got to liking. And for some twisted reason, I feel like we’re supposed to be friends.”

Egon cocked an eyebrow, looking down at Peter as they pushed through the doors of Weaver Hall and out into the cold morning air. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with your interest in precognition, would it?”

“Nah,” Peter shrugged, “Just call it a feeling. Anyway, you might as well just agree to go have drinks with me, or I’m gonna keep bugging you forever.”

Egon almost smiled, amused by the younger man’s tenacity, but pulled a straight face instead. “Forever may not be long enough, honestly.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Forever and a day, then. Whatever. I can be a persistent guy.”

Egon paused, standing in front of the steps and considering Peter. “Two things,” He said finally, “First: we are never working on a project together ever again.”

“Deal,” Peter grinned, “What’s the second thing?”

“I don’t drink.” Egon half shrugged.

Peter smacked a hand to his forehead. “Jesus. You don’t like coffee, you don’t drink, next you’ll be telling me you’re from New Jersey!”

“Ohio, actually.” Egon smirked.

“Hoo boy, we have a lot of work to do,” Peter linked arms with Egon and began to walk him across the campus.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Egon asked at last, though he made no move to pull from Peter’s side.

“Only one way to find out, Spengs,” Peter grinned, “You’re just gonna have to wait and see.”


End file.
